Everything in America is growing. Obesity levels, number of people with diabetes, and everything inbetween. It is a problem that will not be fixed without a large change. A change in what is causing these problems. Artificial sweeteners. We need to eliminate artificial sweeteners before they eliminate us.

Companies are blinding us from the facts. There are tons of negative effects to all of the artificial sweeteners lingering in our food. And there are consequences.

Obesity levels are growing. “Why is this?” you might ask. Artificial sweeteners trigger fat storage, your appetite, and weight gain. When you eat real sugar your brain produces dopamine which satisfies your brain's reward system. When you reach your limit for food intake the appetite-regulating hormone sends out a message to your brain telling it that you are full. However, you need calorie intake to stimulate the hormone and if artificial sweeteners don’t have calories, your brain is unable to receive the message. This tricks you into eating more than you are hungry for. Picture the sweet click of opening a can of Diet Coke. After the first couple sips, the sugars have you wrapped around their sticky fingers. The artificial sweeteners cause an insulin dump. Insulin is the hormone in your body that regulates glucose in your blood. If there is too much glucose, your pancreas stores the extras as fat. That is what happens in your body as you sip down your Diet Coke but then grab a bag of chips to satisfy the hunger aching inside of you. On top of all that, they make you crave carbohydrates. Since artificial sweeteners don’t have any calories, the reward system in your brain craves the real reward from real sugar. On top of the artificial sweeteners not being natural for us, they also process differently in the body than real sugar. This can lead to type two and possible type one diabetes, heart attacks, and strokes. Artificial sweeteners disrupt your metabolic function. This means that when artificial sweeteners go through the body, they disrupt a species of microorganisms. Those microorganisms help the digestive tract digest food. This causes your body to be more vulnerable for diabetes. These sweeteners can also lead to heart attack by causing a severe increase in triglyceride levels. Triglycerides are the main component to natural fats in the human body. When there is high concentrate of them in the blood, it leads to a greater risk for heart attacks and strokes. As you can see, artificial sweeteners destroy our bodies little by little.

Artificial sweeteners are just that - unnatural. They start out unnatural and are processed by our bodies “unnaturally.” How can a body process unnaturally? Well, a body has to adapt to a foreign substance, one it has not encountered before. So, it may be more precise to write that a body becomes unnaturally imbalanced as a result of the “processing.” Artificial sweeteners, that are frequently present in modern foods, were found to impact insulin secretion. Again, this causes an insulin dump. These sweeteners, such as aspartame, trick your body into thinking it has ingested real sugar. But it hasn’t. And it hasn’t ingested something calorically or nutritionally sound or stable. Aspartame is composed of two amino acids that are combined in a science lab. That’s right- this sugar is not natural from the start. Sucralose, another artificial sweetener, is a sucrose that has been chlorinated by chemical alteration. This means that it was altered in a science lab instead of being taken from the resources we have here on Earth. On top of that, the body does not absorb sucralose, meaning that it is almost entirely disposed. To dieters this might sound like a great way to lose a couple pounds however, this is not the case.

Dieters think that substituting real sugar for artificial sweeteners is better for them because the sugars are what make them “fat”. But these artificial, calorie-less sweeteners can harm human bodies in more ways than a person may think. Just like tricky labels, the science behind why lies “hidden.” Like I have proven before, artificial sweeteners tricks the body into producing more insulin than it would with real sugar. This causes the pancreas into turning the extra insulin into fat.Because most artificial sweeteners are calorie free, they seem as if they should be healthy and good for our bodies. The reason that they are calorie free is because the body does not know how to process an artificial substance that is disguised as a real sugar. However, the cons weigh out the pros when you look at the dangers they put us in.

This unnatural product is a drug. It is an addictive narcotic. It stimulates your reward system just like cigarettes, causing a change in mood or behavior. The difference is, cigarettes label the negative health effects if you choose to smoke them. If both drugs damage your body, why would only one be labeled and the other ignored? We need to label artificial sweeteners because there is rare differences in the dangers between cigarettes and these killers. Artificial sweeteners are destroying humans, and this is a problem that need to be stopped.
If this weren’t a problem then why would large companies such as the International Dairy Food Association (IDFA) file a petition that would allow them to add artificial sweeteners to their products without having to label the added sugar?The same company is also trying to sue Vermont to overturn the states GMO labeling law. They are trying to hide the dangers that idle in our food, so that they will sell more products.

With this growing problem, there is only one solution. If we eliminate artificial sweeteners we can avoid all of the trouble. So will you step up to the plate and help get rid of the problems, or will you let the sweeteners devour America?

Citations
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